When she finds chile on a menu, it is almost certain to be part of the phrase chile con carne, perfectly good Mexican for a dish which presumably originated in that part of the country which became Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

A buddy from Texas and a chili aficionado -- who, by the way, prefers using the New Mexican spelling of "chile" -- told me the other week that more and more varieties of peppers, formerly only available in the Southwest, are making their way across the country to groceries and specialty stores.

"Even if they had the money, and sure guides on good, well-guarded trails, it would be bad enough; as it is …" He shrugged, and recommended wine of El Paso (which was excellent), and a fricassee of tender buffalo hump with fiery peppers, called chile colorado (also first-rate, if your belly happens to be lined with copper; if I'd eaten it at Bent's Fort I could have blown the place up without gunpowder).

He shrugged, and recommended wine of El Paso (which was excellent), and a fricassee of tender buffalo hump with fiery peppers, called chile colorado (also first-rate, if your belly happens to be lined with copper; if I'd eaten it at Bent's Fort I could have blown the place up without gunpowder).

I'm hardly an expert on the matter. I am, quite frankly, an utter klutz in the kitchen.

My experience in New Mexico is that the word chile is used to mean both "chile peppers" and "green chile stew," depending on context. If you go to a restaurant here, you'll invariably be asked "Red or green?" Meaning, which color chile peppers do you want in your food? You can't have none at all in New Mexico. We eat chile peppers with everything. However, if you order "green chile" alone, you'll get the stew. Highly recommended, by the way.

It sounds to me that what you make is a stew, similar to what we have here. I wasn't aware that it was made like this outside of NM -- the only chili I knew prior to my move from Florida was the brown stuff. I doubt that your recipe, while it sounds delicious, would be accepted in a chili cook-off. I'm pretty sure those are just looking for the brown. We don't have those cook-offs in New Mexico, because they would probably just confuse a lot of people.

I have seen the cans of Hormel chili (brown stuff) in the grocery stores here, but nobody seems to touch them.

I'm taking the liberty of posting uselessness's comment from sionnach's list of soup words here, since it would seem to be hijacking the soup list to discuss chili vs. chile there:

uselessness: "Here in New Mexico, we don't know about "chili." We eat chile, which is a hearty stew made from (among other things) our indigenous spicy green chile peppers. Back east, where I'm actually from, we ate the more common brown stuff with beans, which is much less substantial. Comparatively speaking, I would describe chile as stew, and chili as soup."

Me again: I have been thinking (perhaps wrongfully) that chile is the name for the peppers, and chili the soup/stew that is made using them. I am familiar (who isn't?) with the "common brown stuff with beans," though that's not what I make at home. Though I don't live in New Mexico, the chili I make is much more stew-like, using lots of chiles, spices, etc. and is very dense and hardly liquidy at all. It may or may not contain beans (more often it does), but always contains tomato products. Would this count as a stew, then, or a soup? That is, is the salient characteristic its heritage (being made in the non-Southwestern U.S.), or whether it has beans (as I've heard some argue), or whether it is spelled chile or chili?

This topic was much in discussion at work this week, where we had a chili cook-off. (I didn't participate except as a judge.)